


ars nova

by Saraku



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Ambiguous Warrior of Light (Final Fantasy XIV), Angst, F/M, Gen, M/M, Other, POV Second Person, What-If
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-21
Updated: 2019-10-21
Packaged: 2020-12-27 22:15:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,225
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21126110
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Saraku/pseuds/Saraku
Summary: In another world, you would have seen him crowned.





	ars nova

**Author's Note:**

> re title: i finished observer on a timeless temple. shoutouts to that to help me make headcanons
> 
> Uh. Heed the major character death tag?

In another world, you would have seen him crowned.

The only thing that remained of him was his staff and the tower he summoned – and, truthfully, the city he founded.

It remains irrelevant to you now.

Ryne stands by your side, downcast and broken just as you. You see Lyna, not the Captain of the Guard, but instead the Exarch’s ward, standing nearby in an ever-present vigil.

There was no body to bury, no body to burn. The Crystarium had its own funeral rites and despite the heavy cloak of mourning, the Exarch’s people were determined to ensure the Exarch could rest. The Exarch had no body left behind to place the wreath on, but they would not rest until the man they treasured more than their hearts would rest on his own.

That’s what had you had been told, at any rate. It had been days since the confrontation with Vauthry, days passed since the Exarch’s passing and the Scions returning, leaving you with Ryne and the fallen staff of the man who did his best to free you from a guilty conscience.

You stand now with the crowds as you watch people pay their respects. There are sobs, weeps, screams. The children who do not understand death understand that the Exarch is gone. All these emotions have driven you to help countries and mourners and all other requests in the past.

You are simply numb now.

G’raha Tia had given you his heart in the past nearly five years prior; now the Crystal Exarch stole yours. Both times, you have been too late to notice the exchange.

Ryne presses herself to you, hiding in your shadow as the sun begins to blaze in sunset. You want to comfort her – _gods,_ you want to comfort her – and yet you remain silent, your heart ashore in the waves of agony; all you can think of the is the one lost to you once in time, twice in space.

The two of you are adrift, lost in the cosmos and your tethers to reality snapped. It would be bold to say you are grounded, and yet as you stare at the wreath made for the Exarch, reality truly does keep you grounded in the hells of your mind.

Someone calls out Ryne’s and yours’ name. A hand curls into itself as you blink and wonder how much time had passed, because it is Lyna who calls for your attention, and she would not leave the remnants of the Exarch’s side until the vigil was over.

There are no words to be spoken regarding the blistering pain. Instead, Lyna simply cuts to the point.

“Ryne,” she says, stiff and kindly, “the Manager has prepared a room for you to stay in as you wish. If you’d like, I can accompany you there now.”

You cannot see the orphaned girl as she is pressed behind you, but you feel her tentatively move away, fingers gingerly releasing her hold on your clothing.

You exhale when Lyna turns her gaze to you, focused and unseeing. “I do not mean to intrude – would you like to join us back to the Suites? Or…”

She trails off and the unprofessionalism makes your skin crawl. Lyna, ward of the Exarch, his child in all but name and blood, closer to him than all, and yet you have the audacity to be numb and act as if you are the most affected.

You want to answer. You wish to yell. You demand to scream.

It feels like the corrupted light, crawling in and up your throat demanding to be _heard _–

No response comes. You shake your head, stiff and silent when all you simply wish to do and break down because all the pieces of you have come apart, cracked and split and wishing to be put back together.

You are broken in such a way you cannot break furthermore.

Lyna nods in acceptance and holds out her hand for Ryne to take. The Oracle looks to you, the Warrior of Darkness, and Ryne stares for one more moment before taking the offered hand and taking the steps.

As they walk off, you thank Ryne and Lyna for their understanding. That you cannot stand to be with someone – _anyone_ – as the crowds linger. The air is clean, the skies are beautiful, and the atmosphere choking with tears.

You look back at the ceremonial altar once more. The staff is gone, hidden away, yet the wreath stays with all the offerings and gifts the people had come to give to the man who wanted none but their happiness.

This will not be your final memory of him.

He’d smiled, happy and free, before plunging into the portal. Your final memory of him will be of the man who went through so much to see you live.

It is a numb blessing, in a way – you would not see him turn. You saw G’raha Tia the Crystal Exarch as who he was in his final moments before he claimed his heavy burden as the heir to the crown of the Lightwardens’s legacy.

It is fitting, you suppose, that the knight misses their liege’s coronation. You have failed him already, and you have failed him again. The right to see the crowning had come to pass.

You’ve no right to see his crowning here, as well.

\---

You wake to Ryne viciously shaking you, tears streaming down her face as she sobs _you wouldn’t wake up, you were screaming and crying and **leaving** _–

You press her to your chest, guarding her from the nightmares that dared plague her, hoping it would help you forget the nightmares that plagued you.

You will see him again – you _will_ see him again. On your terms or his, you have an iron-wrought will and this time it will not be denied. You would not see his crowning, but you would see his reign.

Sleep returns and claims the two of you eventually, silence the perpetual companion in the isolation of your room.

Sleep returns but rest does not.

You doubt you will ever rest again.

\---

There comes a time where you simply _snap_.

You cannot stand to be in your room, you cannot stand to be with Lyna or any of the others you’d befriended – you cannot stand to be in the Crystarium, in Syrcus Tower’s very _presence_.

Your frazzled travels take you far into Rak’tika where the trees and caves shade you, hiding the ever-looming tower. It helps you breathe, to think, to make plans.

It helps and yet is a mistake.

You are reminded instantly about the mockery that followed the fight – you met the accursed Ascian here, and it is here that the atmosphere changes. The longing has passed, the mourning is momentarily shed. You don the cloak of absolute, unrelenting fury.

Emet-Selch’s admittance that he’d planned to _stop_ the Exarch tears into you, knowing and cursing yourself that if the damned Ascian came faster, just a moment _faster_ –

There is no channel for your anger – anger at the Ascian, anger at G’raha, anger at yourself.

You want to scream.

In your darkest hour, in the blackest night, the silence in your blood remains your eternal shadow.

\---

At Ryne’s quiet urging, you return to the Source. She seems relieved, and you feel momentary guilt for your ulterior motive for finally going home.

Your mind recalls that the Exarch once mention the flow of time to be finnicky, and that it was temporarily in sync with the time of the Source. When you return, time had surely changed, because while you had spent days and weeks and nearly months away, nary three months have passed in your home, including the time spent beforehand.

Just as before, you recall the conversation. Just as before, you cannot recall his voice.

Where you once ached to see your family returned to their home, in their rightful places, you wrestle with the chasm in your heart and mind and find Garlond Ironworks instead, seeking their intelligence and mastery in their craft.

You ask the most peculiar questions, and while they do not ask for details, you know they are curious as to why.

When Cid corners you as you ask more details, _too many details_ regarding things they have little progress on, you smile and say it is for a friend.

Half-truths and masked lies roll off your tongue as you ignore the Tower you cannot see, but will forever be burned inside your mind. Cid is not wont to refuse to a friend’s requests, so he indulges. And you can see his wariness, and part of you wonders if this is truly what he would want.

(But he is not here to tell you otherwise – he is asleep, he is adrift.

If he wished to give his input, he should have stayed.)

\---

You avoid Ryne when you return to the First.

Your work here is done, she would say. There is no need to return. For as much as she wishes company, she is stronger than she seems. For as much as she wishes for her family’s presence, the knowledge that they live keep her going.

Despite the crowning of their Exarch, the Crystarium lives on. Pained, scarred, yet the wounds are forcibly healing for they refuse to put the Exarch’s work and sacrifices in vain.

You avoid Ryne because you know she will stop you.

And if someone were to stop you, you will crumble.

There is only one person you wish to see you finally fall apart.

Fortunately, for your mission, you do not need the room of the Umbilicus.

You go back to your past, to the first expedition of Syrcus Tower, clearing out any monsters and contraptions that were set in place by long-lost Allagans. You go to its heart, to the remnants of an Eight Calamity Garlond Ironworks set their legacy on crystal.

And you stand in front of said legacy and stop breathing.

You’ve little knowledge on how this works, but it matters not. You have one destination in mind, and nothing will stop you in your path.

The void in your heart remains stagnant, benign but threatening to change into more.

You let the aether pull at you, threading pieces of worlds together tearing your soul apart and you wonder – _wonder, G’raha, how did you **survive** _– and start to breathe once more.

\---

Empty, chilling, desolate. The ache in your heart grows, vestiges of the past scatter by, echoes of things long lost. Mercy was cruelty in the heart of the Void.

It does not take long to find your quarry, stepping across the soundless sky. Across the haunting emptiness, there was only one that could be as bright as your heart and soul once was.

The twisted light curling around him, its thrall suffocating and blinding. White, gold, silver – a treasure in human form, taken and changed and broken. Lost in time and space, hope and home residing in the future past.

The sorrowful voice echoes in your heart and as you reach out with your Blessing, there is a void larger than your heart, larger than your existence, larger than your life. Woven, spun, protected, ruined. The shards of his soul scatter, corrupted and gleaming. The being larger than life stands before you, a mockery of his final smile.

This is your doing. Your failure, your sin – your mind tears apart and it screams and yet no words come forward.

Then, you had no words for him apart for his long-lost name; you have no words for him now.

He watches and leans before crying out once more. It’s always been like that – you had no words for him, but if you let him, he had words for you.

A tarnish on your mind, yet another mark on your soul. A life long lost, never to return stands before you. A mark on your soul for the soul you failed to protect.

Your hold your weapon and he stands to his full height. The light gleams around him, the star against the darkest night. A cloak, a shield, a throne. It served to do nothing but entrap him in his own personal hell. Sleep nor rest would not come – it would not come for him ever again.

Your mind frays to the barest threads but you stand stall against it. You will free his soul, one way or another. The roles had been switched then, and you will switch it once more.

A mimicry of a crown rests on his head, beautiful and deadly.

In another world, you would have seen him crowned.

\---

(In another world, you would have seen him crowned.

Dressed in soothing black and regal red, embroidered gold and threaded white, you stand by his side as he claims his crown, crafted by his people in his honour, his name, his soul.

You kneel and bow, one hand pressed to your chest as he leans towards you, a crown crafted in his glory resting on his hair and he smiles, offering one hand.

Your honour, your name, your soul for his. His knight in sunrise, his shadow in sunset, his heart always.

You take his hand and rise, pressing a kiss to his hair as you settle to stand by his side.

The knight and their liege, the king and his consort.)

**Author's Note:**

> I have an alternate draft of this where its reverse. As in the alt. scene is the premise, and this fic is the alt. scene
> 
> There’s also a draft of this which is pretty much the same but the Scions are there because…. Someone turning into a Sin Eater doesn’t necessarily mean they’re dead in the laws of magic. It could have worked that way. It can be so much w o r s e
> 
> me: writes this  
also me after 5.1 trailer: if g’raha even so as much gets SCRATCHED I will lose my shit. What does it mean that as he says he won’t throw his life away then zenos shows up?? Why is he trust only for msq?? Does he get hurt in the end that prevents him from joining us again?? Is that why he says those things?? IF ZENOS TOUCHES ANY OF THE RAHA’S – 
> 
> Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed.


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